Life on the Battlefield
by StardustnLight
Summary: From 6x22. Dean doesn't know whether he should hunt Cas down or hug the crap outta him. But when Cas reveals he's prisoner to the souls he consumed, Dean must make a choice. Save the world, or keep his friend. Eventual Destiel
1. A Sleepless Dream

"_I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you."_

The memory of the used-to-be angel almost drowned out the one that stood before the hunter, demanding something that Dean had given him long ago. Love, devotion, Dean had readily handed those over to Castiel upon mentally deeming him a Winchester. And Dean didn't hand over that kind of trust over to anyone, which made the monster looking out of his friend's eyes that more sinister. It hurt him that much more.

But then, the angel/god/whatever's more recent words cut through the haze of guilty responsibility. "_You're not my family Dean. I have no family_"

Dean couldn't even begin to register that statement. He had caused this. Castiel took these measures for _him_, and now he didn't even know where his friend was, because he sure as hell wasn't the _thing_ with the icy gaze in a trench coat looking at him now.

"Cas…it's not too late we can fix this."

"I've told you Dean," the cold gaze shifted to focus on the hunter he was addressing, "there is nothing broken. I am a God now. It is my job to mend."

Dean felt like he was reasoning with a child. A child holding a hand grenade, but a stubborn and blind to the consequences child nonetheless.

Sam seemed to finally tear his bewildered gaze off the ineffective sword on the ground long enough to find his voice. "Look, Cas, we're you're friends. Obviously we love you but-"

"_Friends_ do not frap friends in holy fire." Cas turned his indifferent gaze to the younger Winchester, long enough for Dean to cautiously move in closer. "_Friends _do not doubt. _Friends_ certainly do not literally stab one another in the back. But I can see where you would be confused Sam. Thankfully for you, I will be a benevolent God…as long as you swear your loyalty now."

Dean did not have a plan for this situation. He had no salt, no iron, and the usual weapons used to kill angels were clearly out of the question here. But, he didn't have the will to fight either. He was tired. They all were. And killing one of his best friends was not exactly his idea of a successful evening. So, Dean did the only thing his mind was screaming at him to do. He reached out and touched him.

Cas looked at the hand on his shoulder with inhuman speed, and for a moment Dean was almost scared he would follow up on his promise of destroying them. But suddenly a quick jolt of electricity jumped up his hand and arm at the contact, and the angel/god/cookie-jar-for-souls raised his confused eyes to the elder Winchester's, muttering a mystified "Dean?" before collapsed in a writhing heap on the floor.

"What the hell did you do, boy?" Bobby exclaimed, shoving the stunned man to the side as he knelt by the screaming Cas. But before the burly alcoholic could steady him, Castiel was gone, leaving not the slightest trace that he had ever been there in the first place.

"I…I don't know." Dean's bewilderment of his own hands was interrupted by a second sharp cry to his right. "Sammy!"

He ran to his brother just in time to catch him before he fell to the ground, the younger hunter holding his head in pain. "It's fine, I'm fine…it comes and goes." Sam grunted through his teeth.

Dean and Bobby shared the load that was Sam's body weight as the hightailed it out of that place. It was a good thing too, because Dean couldn't tell if it was Sam's body that was shaking, or his.

* * *

><p>It had been two weeks since the asylum incident and Dean would be surprised if he had gotten a full four hours of sleep. Between Sammy's frequent breakdowns and the eerie silence on the demonangel/purgatory front, things had been far too unsettling for Dean to…well, _settle_ enough to actually sleep.

Sometimes Bobby would catch him in the small morning hours pouring meticulously over newspapers and the dustier books in the Singer library.

"Boy, you need to get some rest. Anything that's happening can wait till the morning."

"Dude opened Purgatory, Bobby," Dean would reply without so much as a glance up from whatever article or lore he was studying, "That's gotta have some kind of side effect. Once we kill whatever that is, we'll find that high-and-mighty dick with a god complex. And when we find him, I'm gonna make him fix what he did to Sammy, then kill the sonofabitch myself." No one could deny the anger in Dean's words when he made threats like this, but if Bobby noticed the lack of determination behind the words, he was kind enough not to mention it. He also was kind enough not to question why Dean seemed suddenly incapable of saying Castiel's name.

Only a muffled cry from where his brother lie unconscious could drag Dean from his research and back to Sam's bedside.

And, to his credit, Sam was doing his damndest to pretend he was okay. During the day he would grin and joke and pour over books with his brother. Even the sudden crippling memories seemed to lessen as the days went on. If Dean hadn't been to Hell himself he might have been fooled into thinking the younger hunter was getting better. But Dean recognized the haunted look in his brother's eyes, and there was no hiding the screams when Sam would finally fall asleep for a few hours. Dean knew how much regular Hell could haunt a man, he could only imagine what being in the Cage with Satan himself and one POed archangel had been like.

So a lovely mixture of paranoia, grief, concern, anger and guilt was constantly bubbling in the older Winchester. Sleep was not about to be something he achieved easily anytime soon. The few moments when he did fall into a short state of unconsciousness, it was completely dreamless, as if his mind didn't have the energy to conjure up the nightmares he had been expecting, let alone a peaceful dream to escape into.

It had been two, long, weeks. And Dean didn't know how much more of this he could take, didn't know how much longer his brother could live like this. He may not be college educated, but he could see Sam dying a bit each day. It was exactly a week, and a day Dean supposed since it was now midnight, that he found himself sitting next to his Sam's bed, blinking back tears as he watched his younger brother thrash at demons only he could see.

The feeling of complete helplessness Dean felt as he watched, that was what drove him to bow his head and utter one, last prayer.

"Cas…look Cas if you can hear me, I…I need you to fix Sam." Dean paused a second. Sam's groans and turning filled the room loudly, but to Dean's ears the room sounded silent without the slight flap of wings. "Castiel" his voice cracked, and he found himself folding his hands together and resting his head on his arms as he knelt next to Sam's bed. "Please. Do what you want to me just…fix Sam. I need him to be okay…I need you to…Look, man I just need you here." Screaming. Kicking. Silence. "Damn it, Cas, I need you!" Dean screamed to the nothingness. Still he went unanswered.

He didn't know how long he stayed like that, praying to someone that was most likely dead. At some point he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew he was sitting on an empty dock, fishing rod in hand, watching the calming waters. Part of him knew that this was a dream, knew that he was kneeling by his tortured brother's bedside at Bobby's house, knew he should be a little suspicious at the first dream he had dreamt in 15 days, but he just couldn't bring himself to care.

That is, until he caught the quick swish of powerful wings, the sound he had been waiting for all night.

Dean all but jumped out of his chair, knocking the fishing pole into the lake and spinning around to face…well, _him._

He didn't know what he expected to see, but Castiel standing before him, in the same rumpled suit and oversized trench coat he always wore, hair in the same state of dishevelment, basically looking _normal_ was not it. The angel/god/dickwad at least had the decency to look shamed. The only problem was Dean didn't know if he wanted to kill the bastard or hug the crap out of him.

"Dean-" The familiar gravelly voice broke his momentary shock, and Dean felt that two-week-old anger rising up in him like bile.

"Where the _HELL_ have you been, man?" He interrupted, knocking his chair to the side and marching up to the angel to glare into the face of what was once his friend. He was so angry he didn't even pause to contemplate that the eyes he was staring angrily into were no longer glazed with icy indifference. "Stop playing dress up in Daddy's shoes and get your feathery ass to Bobby's house and undo whatever the hell you did to Sam."

Cas, for one of the first times since he met Dean, averted his gaze. "I can't, I-"

"What do you mean you _can't_" Dean hissed, voice full of venom, "You mean you _won't_, right? I-"

"Shut up for two seconds Dean, I don't have much time." Cas interjected, locking his gaze with the hunter's again, righteous anger and determination burning behind the cool blue eyes. Dean was stunned into silence, his jaw almost audibly snapping shut. Apparently satisfied, the angel continued.

"I don't have control over myself anymore. The souls have…overridden me. It took all my strength to escape long enough to appear to you here, but they'll notice soon and pull me back. I don't have time for apologies or excuses right now," Once again Cas dipped his head in shame. "I suspect I would never have enough time. But that is not of import. Dean, I need you to stop the souls. I need you to stop me."

Dean swallowed down all his anger at the desperate look on Cas' face. This was the Cas who was his friend, he suddenly knew. This was the Cas he could trust. "How." He managed, his face falling grave.

A quick flash of sadness flitted across the angel's face, so quick that Dean didn't know if he would have caught it if he hadn't known Cas as well as he did. "You need to kill me Dean."

All traces of anger were gone now, as if they never existed, and instead the sharp tang of panic filled his mouth. "What? No, there has to be some other-"

"There isn't, Dean. It is okay , I have come to terms with it. Now listen, there is a ritual-"

"I'm not killing you!"

"Dean! You-" The angel suddenly looked behind him, as if hearing a sound only on the angel radar. "They know I'm gone. Find the book in the asylum that Crowley was using. There's another spell to disperse the souls. You have to do this Dean."

The look that Castiel was giving him was giving him was final, sad. Dean could only feel defeated. He had the sudden, crazy, confusing urge to grab the angel and kiss the bejesus out of him. But before Dean could be appalled at the idea, Cas' eyes widened in panic and was suddenly gone.

When Dean woke up, Sam was in a rare moment of silent sleep.

As the tired hunter rose from the floor, the only thing that registered in his mind was that same bitter taste of defeat.


	2. On the Road to Hell Again

Dean had no trouble dreaming after that night, though he wasn't necessarily getting more sleep. His dreams now all started the same; Dean would be standing alone in the asylum, chanting words he did not understand. His incantation would soon enough be interrupted by the angel, a dream interpretation not the real one. The scene would stop with a sharp flash from the angel's eyes, and a painful shock of electricity, before plunging into the second half of the dream. This part was not nearly as coherent. Flashes of fire, ice and a shower of sparks would fight for dominance in his mind. Images of a kind smile with just a hint of white teeth Dean could never place, laughter and warm rain would disperse the more violent pictures. There was nothing Dean could ever follow, and no single image would stay long enough for Dean to properly associate it with anything.

He would often wake up more exhausted than when he went to sleep. The idea of carrying out his new mission, on top of keeping a wary eye on Sam, did little to encourage him to fall out of bed either. But, he would always inevitably find the energy to haul his ass downstairs and get to work.

The day after the dream encounter with Cas, Dean had dragged Sam to the asylum to rifle through the discarded remnants of the ritual to open purgatory. But of course, it would have been far too easy for the book to actually be where Cas said it would. The brothers scoured that place top to bottom, but there wasn't even the slightest trace of paper let alone a book, Sam whining like a little bitch the whole time. Though, in his defense Dean hadn't been to clear on why they were searching for the book in the first place. He just thought the less that was on Sam's plate right now, the better.

But if the noticeable lack of reading material wasn't suspicious enough, the shortage of any kind of supernatural activity really put the brothers on edge.

"Dean," Sam interjected as Dean decided to search the fateful room for roughly the fourth time that day, "There is nothing here. Less than nothing. It's actually a little strange how much nothing there is."

Dean sighed in frustration, ignoring the urge to give Crowley's dissecting table a powerful kick. "Yeah I know Sammy."

"Maybe we should go back and investigate this more tomorrow? I mean we've been here for hours, I don't think we're going to pick up a trail."

Dean spared a look t his brother and mentally kicked himself. It didn't take a genius to see the barely concealed pain on his face. He had thought plunging headfirst into a new assignment might distract Sam from whatever horror he saw every time he closed his eyes, but it was obvious that all it did was wear him down even more. He swallowed down his own desire to keep searching every inch of the building and instead nodded enthusiastically.

"Yeah, Sammy, you're right. We should probably get some rest. Clear our heads and attack this tomorrow."

They headed back to Bobby's pickup, because Dean had been too focused on research and watching his brother to even attempt to start putting his baby back together again, and drove home in relative silence. That is, until Sam's curiosity started to get the better of him.

"So…explain again why we're looking for this book."

The sudden sound of his brother's voice dragged Dean out of his own thoughts, and he glanced to the passenger side to find Sam looking at him with confusion.

"I told you, to stop the walking Pandora's Box of souls from doing God knows what, no pun intended, to humanity." He responded gruffly, averting his gaze back to the black asphalt in front of him.

"How do you know it will work?" Sam pressed, leaning closer, "You seem pretty sure it will."

Dean's grip on the steering wheel tightened. For some reason he was becoming increasingly uneasy with the idea of Sam finding out about his and Cas' dream rendezvous. "I just do okay? It's simple logic. If there was a spell to get the souls into the dumbass, there's gotta be a way to reverse it in there right?"

Sam's gaze flickered to Dean's white knuckles to his set jaw and bit down his next question. He knew when it was dangerous to push his brother, and anyway, he was sure he'd figure out what was going on eventually.

That was the first night Dean had the dream, hunched over a pile of books in Bobby's study, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a pencil in the other. And when he woke up, the only thing that could disperse the cloud of confusion in his head wad to get under the hood of the Impala.

The preliminary fixes were almost done by the time Bobby found him out there, attacking the underside of the car with such determination that one would think his life depended on it.

"Dean" Bobby called, walking up to where the hunter's boots stuck out from under the Impala. When he wasn't answered, Bobby pulled the rolling board out with his foot, only to be met with a pair of very annoyed green eyes.

"Sam told me the amount of zip you found."

Dean rolled his eyes, "Yeah, why did you find anything useful?"

"No, but-"

"Then let me get back to-"

"Shut up, son. He also told me you're hiding something."

That made Dean go quiet for a second. He gulped, something that Bobby didn't miss, and averted his eyes. "Yeah, well dude's got the PowerPoint of Hell playing in his head right now so he's not the most reliable of sources." He tried to push himself back under the car but Bobby caught the board with his foot.

"Don't give e that crap, Dean. What the_ hell_ is going on with you?"

Dean sat up and ran a hand through his hair, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. "Cas…uh…he dream-called me."

"He _what_?"

"He told e that we have to find this book again, so we can…" Dean looked away again, swallowing hard, "..so we can stop him. Kill him."

"And _Cas _told you this?"

"Yes."

"Love me or I will _destroy_ you, Cas."

Dean glared up at Bobby. "No. Yes. I don't know. It's the souls, they're holding him prisoner or something, controlling him."

"And you really trust him?" Bobby folded his arms and shook his head, "Because I'm really trying to see your logic here, Dean. How do you know it's not really some spell to blow us all up or something?"

"I just know, okay? It was the real Cas, not the jacked up on souls…_thing_ that we saw in the asylum. I can tell the difference, I'm not stupid, Bobby."

"I never said you were."

"Then trust me, I'm dealing with this."

Bobby did not bring up the dream stalking, as he affectionately thought of it, again.

Another week went by. Dean went back and searched the asylum twice, and came up short both times. Once it finally clicked with him he wasn't going to find anything there, he decided to investigate his only other witness; Crowley.

The only problem was the King of Hell had never been easy to find, and now it seemed downright impossible. So, since Dean finally had his baby up and running, Dean and Sam hit the road to investigate some potential demon infestations. It was a long shot, but it was all they had.

They were in a generic motel off the beaten path in Ohio when Dean found himself praying again.

"Cas…I know you're busy being held captive and all…but if you could pull another dream stunt like you did last time that would be really appreciated." A particularly loud grown from Sam's bed made hi crack one eye open. He studied his brother, making sure it was nothing worse than normal, well normal as of lately, and continued his 'prayer'. "It's just that we can't find your stupid book, and I don't think they sell it at your friendly neighborhood Barnes & Noble…so if you have any clues, they'd be really appreciated."

As Dean expected, there was no immediate answer. So, he kicked off his shoes and settled onto the bed, trying his bed to ignore the scattered grunts and screams coming from his left. It seemed like he lay there for hours, staring at the back of his eyelids, begging sleep to wash over him. Before too long, he found himself sitting on a wooden bench in a small park. He was so surprised not to find himself back in the asylum, like every other night, that it almost slipped his notice that this was a perfect replica of the park where Castiel first admitted his doubts. It was where Dean first started to trust him.

He felt him before he heard him. His presence lately, even in dreamland, was tangible to Dean. His complaint halted on his tongue when he looked over at the angel. This time, to say Cas was battered would be an understatement. His usual hunch was exaggerated, bruises covered what Dean could see of his skin, and a nasty red cut ran from the top of the right side of his face face to his cheekbone, stopping only for the tired blue eye. His trenchcoat was even more tattered and dirty than usual and tears that looked like claws had been ripping at him covered the suit underneath.

"Cas what happened to you?"

The angel shifted uncomfortably under the hunter's gaze. "That is not of import. Have you found the book?"

Dean resisted the urge to reach up and trace the angry scar on the angel's face and instead shook his head. "No, we figured either Crowley has it or…"

"Or I do." Cas smiled bitterly as he finished Dean's thought.

"The Castiel-shaped soul machine, not you." Dean corrected feebly. "Any ideas? It's kinda hard playing Elmer Fudd to your Looney Toons when I don't know whether to go after Bugs or Daffy."

Cas' eyes crinkled in confusion, head tilted, "I…don't understand that reference."

Dean wouldn't be able to understand why, but that simple, familiar act made him throw his arms around the angel, who grunted in surprise, and hug him as if it was the last thing he would ever do.

"Dean…I appreciate this sign of affection…but given my current state…" The barely contained pain in the angel's voice made the hunter jump back, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"Right…sorry, man…I just…I guess I miss you. Tell anyone and I'll kill you." Dean laughed humorlessly at his own joke, but it caused Cas to grin slightly.

"I…miss you too, Dean."

"What is going on with you?" Dean said quickly changing the subject as he took in the angel's appearance once more.

"I've been fighting off the souls. It…slows them down at least. They are preoccupied with killing my brothers right now, so they will not miss my presence for a while." Cas broke off suddenly, glaring angrily at the ground.

"It's not you, Cas." Dean read the guilt all to easily on his friend's face, and laid a hand gingerly on his shoulder, careful not to hurt him again.

Cas shot him a look that said he was full of shit. "You do not have to baby me, Dean. It is my fault. You told me not to do it, but I was so blinded by my own certainty."

"You thought you were doing the right thing." If someone had told Dean that he would actually be comforting Cas three weeks ago, he would have laughed. And then tested them for possession most likely. But, seeing Cas beating himself up, when the Purgatory soul brigade was doing such a good job of that already, was unbearable for him.

Castiel looked at the hand on his shoulder, then turned his intense stare to Dean's face. A moment of heated silence and Dean looked at the ground, removed his hand, placing it awkwardly in his lap and cleared his throat again.

Another moment of silence was broken by that familiar gravelly voice, weighted with guilt and sorrow."…I do not have the book, nor do I know its current whereabouts. But I would agree that Crowley is your best lead. Hurry, Dean. My brothers and sisters are being driven into hiding, and who knows what I will be capable of with no opposition."

Before Dean could respond, he felt an empty space beside him. Sure enough, when he looked, Castiel has disappeared.

"Friggin angels."

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

_Thanks for the input everyone! I know this fic seems kinda dark right now but I promise there will be lighter notes! I just hope I'm staying true to the characters and the show as possible :)_


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